“What would that even look like? I mean, I don’t like to be hit. I’m not a masochist at all. Would I just be the guy’s maid?” She didn’t trust that any man who was attracted to women, who owned her would ever be able to not fuck her, let alone not hit her—going on past experience.
“There are all kinds of touch and closeness that isn’t sexual. You might be surprised by the bond that could form. It’s up to you. You tell me what you’re willing and able to do, and we’ll work from there.”
Were they negotiating her limits? She’d never once had this conversation with a man. She’d come to believe limit negotiations were a myth. She’d tried to bring it up in her first kink relationship, but the guy had scoffed at her and assured her that he would just know if he was going too far.
Well, he had just known, and then he’d crossed all her lines anyway. And the one after him. And the one after him. And finally Jason. They’d all done it. After the first guy, she hadn’t brought up negotiations and limits because she was afraid they’d start in on some “slaves don’t get to negotiate” bullshit.
She knew some people somewhere negotiated. It was the codified rule of things on the surface. And she knew some girls who claimed they had, and that their dominants had honored their boundaries. But snakes lurking in the wood pile were all too common in a lifestyle where it was hard to tell real abuse from pretend by just looking.
“Mina… did I lose you?” Lindsay urged her back to the present. “Yes or no on intercourse? I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me, or this won’t work.”
“I mean, I can do intercourse. It’s not like I’m broken.” But wasn’t she?
“I’m marking, no. This isn’t about what you can try to cope with without becoming catatonic. We’re talking ideal situations. Let me see what I can find for you. At that point we can decide if any concessions need to be made.”
Of course concessions would be made. Why was he pretending to give her the option to opt out of the one sexual act that even vanilla society had deemed mandatory or it wasn’t real sex?
This wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t trust that Lindsay had the power to stop her from being hurt by whatever random pervert he hooked her up with. And she didn’t buy that he had access to such a man in the first place.
She took a deep breath and laid out clearly and succinctly what she wanted. “No penetration. No physical pain. Everything else is okay.” She was sure any theoretical master would ask what else could there possibly be if all of that was off the table?
She expected Lindsay to laugh at her. These things didn’t exist. Anywhere. Maybe if she built a robot, she could program him to her exact weird specifications.
“Okay. Are you serious about this? If I find someone who meets these needs for you, will you do it?”
Mina waited for the punchline, but it didn’t seem to be coming.
“I’m asking for impossible things, and… I’ve got these scars. Even if you could find some completely bizarre man who would go along with all of this, he wouldn’t want me once he saw the scars.” And he probably wouldn’t be able to deal with the drama of her emotional scars, either.
“May I see them?” Lindsay asked.
“I-I’d have to take off my shirt.”
He raised a brow and leaned back in his seat. It was a challenge. It was a dare. And a small part of her buzzed with excitement, because it was also a show. God, what the fuck was wrong with her? Even now, after everything, she was so fucked in the head.
Mina stood and turned around. She unbuttoned the silk top and let it slide off her shoulders. She’d never shown anyone her scars in full light—at least not anyone who wasn’t beating or fucking her. She’d worried that if things progressed with Tony, she’d have to insist on sex with the lights off.
He’d think she was a prude or insecure, but it would be better than him seeing what had been done to her and maybe getting sadistic ideas of his own.
Circular marks from cigarettes ran down the backs of her arms and her legs. There were whip scars and knife scars on her back. Most of it had healed enough that she didn’t look like a total monster, but the scars were definitely distracting. Mina couldn’t imagine how they wouldn’t be.
She jumped when a warm finger traced one of them.
A whimper left her throat.
“Yes, you definitely need a proper master. I don’t think this will be a problem. You’d be surprised the number of men who have a hero complex and wouldn’t mind at all. You can put your shirt back on.”
Mina’s fingers shook as she struggled to get the buttons back in their holes. When she sat, the doctor pressed a cup of tea into her hands.
“It’s camomile. It’ll soothe you.”
She took a sip and gathered the courage to say what she’d wanted to say since she’d stepped into his office. “Do you have somebody? A pet or slave or sub or whatever?”
Lindsay shook his head. “Between my work here and… my other work… I don’t feel I have the time or energy to devote to someone like that.”
“Oh.”
He was letting her down easy.
She stared into the cup, trying not to notice as he moved closer to her and leaned against the desk, his leg a mere inches from hers. All one of them would have to do is shift the barest amount to be touching the other.
She flinched when his hand brushed her cheek.
“Mina, look at me.”
She looked up, wishing she could bury all the vulnerability she’d allowed this man to see, wishing he wanted her because if there was a single person on the planet who could give her faith that this could work and that she could be happy, it was Lindsay.
“It’s not that I’m not attracted. I really don’t have time. I can’t give you what you need outside this office.”
She nodded and took another sip of tea to distract herself from his looming closeness.
Dr. Smith moved back behind the desk. “I’m going to call an associate of mine tomorrow to see if he’ll meet with you and if he thinks we should accept you into the program. I will warn you that he will touch you, and not in a safe, platonic way.”
Mina felt the tremble coming back into her hands and set the teacup down on the desk.
Lindsay pretended not to notice. “He will touch you. He will look at you. But he will not cause you pain, and he will not penetrate you. Do you trust me?”
“Y-yes.” She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t trust any other perverts after what had happened with the last four. But the doctor felt more solid, more stable somehow.
“If he agrees to the meeting will you go and do whatever he asks within those parameters?”
“Y-yes.”
He nodded and scribbled something down in the notebook. “Very well.”
“A-are we finished here?”
Lindsay glanced at the clock. “Unless you have more to talk about. Do you want me to prescribe a sedative?”
“No.” There wasn’t a pill in the world that would let her sleep tonight. She gathered her purse and started for the door.
“Mina?”
She turned to find intense eyes on her once again.
“Whether or not you end up in our program, you will not speak of this conversation to anyone. I care a great deal about you and your well-being. It would make me extraordinarily unhappy to have to hurt you. Do we understand each other?”